Steve Jobs and Complicated Characters

In my class Reading in the Content area II class, we have been reading the biography titled after its focal person, Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson.

There seem to be two systems of thought when considering Steve Jobs: Black vs. White or A Layered approach. I believe it is too easy to write Steve Jobs off as "an arrogant asshole," although there is much evidence to support this notion. I believe the character of Jobs is much to complicated to be labeled so easily. I see him as a harsh, even brutal employer who lacks or ignores social pleasantries. If we allow the reason for these missing social graces and professional respect to be hypothetically chalked up to being categories which Jobs choose to ignore, then this adds to his character and takes us closer to understanding who he was and why he was the way people remember him.

If we consider him to be a layered individual, much too complex to be easily labeled, then a new question arises: should we put this in a guise of fiction to better work with his character or can we achieve such an analysis in a work of non-fiction? The argument against the latter notion comes from the difficulty some people in the class had with coupling the good and admirable qualities of Steve Jobs with his vices and flaws. Possibly, some people allowed their emotions to obfuscate their perception. Why were people unable to clinically analyze this "character?" Can someone become tied up in a story, emotionally invested, and still logically and pragmatically analyze the people/characters in it even if the people and anecdotes are real? This is a really tough question, one I cannot answer. I became fascinated with Jobs's journey through college and India and his management of Apple and could still treat his character objectively. Why could others not get passed that?

Question for readers: Can students/people objectively analyze a person described in a biography or an autobiography whom they know to be a real person?